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Sunday I hiked out to the burnt out shack and looked around a bit. Charred wood and debris. No bird bones. No bird skeletons and no talking bird ghosts.
Fire, the greatest beast man has ever tamed.
Trumpets blared in the distance, down by the fence. I followed the sound. My ‘private property’ banner still hung there. The tickets nailed to the fence post looked more tattered and frayed, but held on for dear life.
By contrast, the nails that held me together were loose, coming out, or missing altogether.
I don’t know what possessed me, but some sudden impulse did. I tore one of the tickets free and hopped the fence. Wandered towards the music which had been joined by a chorus of jeers and cheers.
I walked across the field until the crowd grew thick. There were all manner of tents raised in all shapes and sizes. Every fourth person was in costume. I didn’t know if they were attendees or part of the show. Part of the pageantry.
It was a carnival. It certainly smelled like one. Nobody paid me any attention and nobody asked for my ticket.
I stuffed it into my trousers and marched along, following the herd. The ground here had recently been green and soft. Now it was sandy, worn away by the tramps who trampled up and down. Seeking pleasure, distraction, or to make a quick buck off of those who sought.
The sun was high overhead. A throng of spectators spread out and around bleachers set up on either side of what I soon understood to be a jousting field.
A couple of nuts in full armor were hacking away at each other. It had to be a million degrees inside those stupid suits. What were they thinking?
The crowd egged them on. The giant with the red feather soon pummeled the smaller figure to the ground. There was a yellow feather attached to his helmet which broke as he prostrated himself before his vanquisher.
The crowd politely applauded. The victor galloped up to the royal box and accepted a single, long-stemmed red rose from some royal personage, waved it overhead and bowed to the audience. I half-expected him to ride into the center of the ring and do a few donuts, like a NASCAR driver.
But he didn’t.
A hand tapped me on the shoulder.
I turned. It was Dean, the pony-tailed kid.
“Hey, Mr. Private Property. I see you decided to take me up on the tickets. Cool.” He smiled. “I’m glad you came.”
“You defiled my sign.”
“Well,” he scratched his forehead. It was damp with perspiration. “You’ve got me there. I did paint it up a bit. It seemed so stark, you know?”
I said nothing.
“Listen,” he paused. “Talbot, right?”
I squinted and left him hanging.
He shrugged. “That’s what I heard, anyway. I heard your name is Talbot. Jeff Talbot. Guess you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.”
Dean cleared his throat. “About the sign. Life is art. You know, all the world’s a stage and all that.” He leaned closer. “We all have to live for today, Mr. Talbot. Move on.”
“What?” I said softly, trembling. He smelled like kerosene and fried turkey. Maybe he liked to fry his turkey legs in cheap lighter fluid. His hand rested on the edge of my arm.
“I heard about your daughter. I’m really sorry and—”
I smashed his arm away. “What the hell do you know?! Don’t touch me. Don’t touch my stuff or my land.” Everybody in the world, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, Brazil to Beirut, was looking at us, at me. I didn’t give a damn. “And don’t every mention—” I paused, my voice fell a couple hundred decibels and the last two words were barely audible, “My daughter.”
Dean swallowed, looking quite upset. I didn’t give a damn.
Two small hands, delicate as the wings of a dove, alighted on my upper arm and rested there. A pulse of energy shot through me. I jerked my head around.
It was that girl, Bonnie. Dean’s girlfriend, I conjectured. Though she wasn’t wearing a wedding band. “Hi. Glad you could come.”
Her manner of dress was simple compared to many I’d seen in this crowd; a green leotard and matching top. Everyone in this circus, men, women, children and dogs came dressed to the nines in everything from renaissance to medieval to pirate garb. Not to mention the fairies and elves. Her midriff was flat and bare and bronzed by the sun. Her feet were bare and dirty. I noticed she didn’t paint her toenails. Odd. So many women do.
She looked from me to Dean. “What’s going on? Dean stick his foot in his mouth again?” She smiled and the edges of her eyes wrinkled ever so lightly. “He’s a contortionist among other things. So he’s good at that. Aren’t you, Dean?”
Dean smiled, let out a slow breath, shrugged. “Yeah, that I am.”
Bonnie pulled on my arm. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.
I don’t know why, another sudden impulse, I suppose, but I let her pull me away. Something in those smooth, green eyes of hers, polished like gems, wouldn’t let me refuse. And I felt six billion sets of eyeballs, that had only moments before been glued to me, fall away, snowflakes falling from a snow-covered Tree of Life.
* * *
We walked around for a bit. It seemed aimless to me, but she seemed to be following some inward path. She explained all the different shows and said hi to any fellow entertainers we happened to pass. Visitors hurled knives and axes at thick wood planks, tried their hand at climbing rope ladders, chopping wood, and sliding a mug of beer down an outdoor bar thirty feet long. Get the mug in the circle, win the beer. Cost: 3 dollars.
There was a whole line of people waiting to get into some event called: Slings And Arrows of Miss Fortune. Whatever that was.
There were countless tents set up for vendors, many of whom displayed handcrafted jewelry and weaponry. My personal favorite was the shirtless hawker in baggy trousers sitting astride a wooden keg, selling giant pickles.
“Want one?” Bonnie asked, catching me looking.
I shook my head no.
She bought us each a glass of ale instead and we rested at a weather beaten old picnic table. The few specks of paint to be found suggested that the table might once have been yellow. The amorphous paint chips were spread out like amoebae seeking solitude. I downed half my drink in one swallow. Bonnie barely touched hers.
A gangly young man, made ganglier by the stilts he was cavorting on, came up to us. “Huzzah, Bonnie!”
“Hello, Tweezer.”
How apropos, I thought. He looked like a pair of tweezers in dusty pantaloons, no shirt, just a wildly embroidered vest which he cavalierly left unbuttoned. The only time I’d seen a similar pattern to the one on his vest was on a picture in a science book of a web produced by a spider on LSD. This was its Technicolor wacky twin. Maybe he’d seen the same textbook and used it for inspiration.
“Show’s in twenty.” He bowed, waved his cap in my direction.
I frowned.
“Good day, milord. I hope you will be in attendance this fine afternoon. ‘Tis a splendid show of daring and magic we shall be performing for your pleasure.”
“Nothing gives me pleasure.” I rose, looked at Bonnie. “I should be going.”
She looked startled. “But I haven’t finished showing you around.”
“I’ve seen enough. Thanks for the ale.”
“At least let me walk you out.” She grabbed my hand.
“We’ve got a show, Bonnie,” piped in Tweezer. He tapped his bare wrist.
What no sundial?
She made a face at him and Tweezer waved his black hat once more, with flourish—it looked for all the world like a crippled fruit bat—and turned heel.
“What?” I snatched my hand away. “Are you afraid I’ll create another scene? Escort the crazy man safely off the premises? Is that the idea?”
This time she made the face for me.
“Nice looking ocular death ray,” I said. “I give you 10 for presentation, but as I’m still in one piece,” I rubbed my unharmed chest for emphasis, “zip for efficacy.”
She took my hand again. Gently. “Come on.” She sounded like she was talking to a four-year-old. Maybe she thought she was.
* * *
Bonnie led me behind the food stalls where she pushed open a flap in a flimsy canvas wall that had been erected around the inner perimeter. I wasn’t surprised to discover an assortment of more modern looking tents, RVs, campers, trucks, portable generators, portable toilets and more. I’d seen them all from the higher vantage of my land.
She took me to a small, rounded travel trailer. Its badging labeled it a SilverTear. It was one of those aluminum skinned teardrop jobs, first popular in the 1930s and 40s. I pegged it as a replica or a restoration. It was in pretty decent shape, considering. The teardrop was attached to a light green Oldsmobile Cutlass S that had likewise seen better days. That car was old twenty years ago.
She pushed open the door and I followed her inside, ducking my head as I went. There was a light scent of sandalwood in the air. The windows were minuscule, mere portals. The drapes were drawn.
The door closed with a bang behind us.
She sat on the small, thin bed. The sheets were unmade but clean. She faced me. Reached out to me. “Make love to me.” Her voice was soft, like a rustling of a coverlet.
I felt a rushing in my ears, in my cock. I’d been thrown off balance. I thought I might black out. But I managed to say, “Just like that?”
She thought a moment. “No. Not ‘just like that.’ It isn’t that simple.” She rubbed her left arm. “And maybe I can’t explain it, but I know it’s right.” She patted the bed.
“What about Dean?”
“My brother? What about him?”
Her brother, yes. That made sense. The same green eyes. That Roman nose.
Slowly, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed me, softly, deeply. I felt her hands cupped behind my neck. My body reverberated as if I’d been struck by an eight-foot door as deep, hard and heavy as a black hole. I stepped back, felt her weight on me. I feared my knees would buckle if she didn’t stop.
But she did. And when she did, she said, “This was meant to be, Jeffrey.” She kissed me again. “I’m what you need.”
A chorus of anguish, fear and anticipation swept me into the unknown and unknowable ocean that lay before me.
We made love quickly, but it seemed to go on forever. When it was over, and I had exploded inside her, I felt that I might die, or at least that I should.
But I didn’t.
Life is never that simple.